Microsoft Doesn’t Have to Abandon Their Vision with the Xbox One.

Literally days after posting my article on how Sony and the Playstation 4 are choosing to preserve gaming culture, Microsoft decided to do a one-eighty reversing all of their DRMpolicies. Although this reversal is overall a good thing for gamers worldwide, it does limit their vision. They had grand ideas of an all digital world, where your game library was stored to the cloud and accessible from any Xbox One. They also had a game share idea where you could give your friends and family members access to games in your cloud. Although these ideas were cool, it did force that incessant daily check in with their servers, causing problems for people who have very unstable connections. I personally think Microsoft could have pulled it off, if only they had taken a different approach.

3G Cards Are Cheap! Why Doesn’t The Xbox One Have Them?

Amazon, with their Kindle, offers free 3G for its users to download books. Although, the upfront costs for Amazon are high, the potential book sales that come from having a device always connected offsets those costs. The question must be asked, why didn’t Microsoft just add a 3G card into all Xbox One‘s? 3G chips inside cell phones are incredibly cheap, we have been mass producing them for years, to add them to each console would add very little to production cost. This would appease the masses, because although rural areas lack fast internet, most area’s, even third world countries, have cell phone towers. The data required to ping Microsoft’s servers would only be kilobits. The cost Microsoft would have to pay would be so incredibly minimal that they could easily offset it with Xbox Live subscription profits. Some may be concerned that the 3G chips could create privacy concerns, but remember, all of our phones have the same technology, and we aren’t up in arms about that.

Microsoft should still allow people to opt-in.

We can’t dwell on what could have been, let’s look to the future with the Xbox One. The fact of the matter remains that many of the ambitious ideas Microsoft had with their console don’t need to be abandoned. There are still many among us that have great internet connections and don’t mind the 24 hour server ping. Maybe with your Xbox Live Gold subscription, Microsoft could allow its users to opt into many of these cloud features. They could still move forward in their vision, and have people opt in once the internet infrastructure in their areas improve. They shouldn’t have to fully concede their vision just because the Playstation 4 made some direct attacks.

Messy Marketing | Microsoft needs to present things clearly

During E3, the most frustrating part of Microsoft’s press conference was the lack of an explanation on some of the key features they wanted to implement with the Xbox One. Sure, it was awesome that they dedicated so much time to games, but it wouldn’t have hurt in the slightest to take out five minutes to explain everything in easy-to-understand english. In choosing not to discuss any of the concerns made them seem disingenuous and as if they had something to hide. What came after was a hodgepodge of different executives saying different things to different journalists. The messaging became even more confusing, and only made them look pretentious. You counter their messaging with Sony’s, where everything was very clear, upfront, and earnest, it was easy for the PS4to capture the imaginations of the viewing audience. Whenever Microsoft has another Xbox One conference, they must go out of their way to make things as clear as absolutely possible.

Are you guys hoping that Microsoft will still implement many of the cloud features with the Xbox One? Sound off below.

The rumor mill has been spinning with ferocity as recent reports have stated that the successors to the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3, possibly codenamed Durango and Orbis respectively, will not support used games. If these rumors come to fruition, the average gamer may feel threatened that their dollar will not be able to stretch as far as it once did. This is based on the assumption that new games will continue to retail for sixty dollars. I, on the other hand, feel that the end of used sales could be the advent of cheaper game.

To understand this, we must break down the current situation. Most people feel that in the console race there are three actors, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. What some fail to realize is that there's a fourth actor also competing for our dollars, used retailers. Silicone Knights head of development, Denis Dyack, stated in an interview with GameIndustry that "'used games increase the cost of games,'" because the used market has reached a level of maturity in which games cannot generate revenue in the long term as they once did before.

Console manufacturers created the current pricing model to compensate for potential sales lost to used games. For example, Co-founder of French studio Quantic Dream, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, stated in an interview with GameIndustry that Heavy Rain sold "approximately two million units," but based on trophy data, three million people had played the game. The loss of those one million in sales prevented Quantic Dream from receiving €5 to €10 million in royalties.

Precedent for a drop in price from one generation to another does exist, but to a minor extent. During the NES era, games did retail for fifty dollars on average with a few outliers like Donkey Kong Country or Final Fantasy. If you account for inflation, the fact that the last generation of games were set at fifty dollars does technically entail that prices were cheaper compared to those of the late eighties and early nineties.

It's important to realize that fair competition brings prices down. Assuming that the three major console manufacturers aren't caught in a price fixing scheme, competition should drive prices lower. No longer would manufacturers have to worry about potential loss of sales and could fully concentrate on beating the other company out.

Could the next generation be a call back to the fifty dollar price point, nay, even forty? Sound off in the comments section below.

So the speculation begins. In the seventh year of the 360's life cycle, rumors are starting to surface about the nature of the new Xbox. Gaming website IGN reported yesterday that its sources have confirmed the GPU's for the next Xbox will go into production late 2012. If this is true, then we can expect to see the next Xbox in Q4 of 2013. Sources claim the GPU for the new Xbox will be based on last years AMD 6000 series of chipsets. Considering the 360's GPU is based on the AMD ATI 1900 series, this is quite a jump. The 360's GPU is based on technology developed in 2003. If the current rumors are true, than Microsoft will be continuing the trend by releasing a console in 2013 with technology developed in 2011.

Cost

Different companies handle console costs differently. Nintendo never likes to lose money and therefore will always put out a product that yields profit on every unit sold. Sony, on the other hand, is willing to take the hit and release the console at a loss in hopes of offsetting it with games, movies, and accessories sales; Microsoft follows the same practice. The original Xbox was said to have cost 125 dollars extra to produce than what they were selling it for. Upon the release of the 360, again Microsoft was hemorrhaging 125 dollars per console produced.

Before speculating on the price, I would like to preface by stating this is pure conjecture based on my current knowledge of computer hardware. These are my estimates and there is a margin of error. I estimate that the cost for producing the new Xbox's GPU will be around 40-50 dollars. I assume the new console will sport a sizable hard drive, around 250 gigabytes, also costing around 40-50 dollars. Since the CPU needs to be powerful enough to ensure it doesn't become a bottleneck for the GPU, I estimate it will cost around eighty dollars. There will most likely be four gigabytes of RAM clocked at 1333 MHz, costing around ten dollars. The motherboard will cost around 30-50 dollars. Accessories are usually very cheap to produce, I estimate 10-20 dollars maximum.

Price

If we add up the numbers, at most the new Xbox would cost 210-260 dollars to produce. Since Microsoft has been willing in the past to sell their machines at a loss, I don't see why they will change their trend. I will go out on a limb and say Microsoft will charge 200 dollars for their console at launch taking a small hit. This would be a huge blow to both Nintendo and Sony. Microsoft would be offering a quality console at a price that is highly competitive and can eat at both Sony's and Nintendo's market share. Why is the machine so cheap? Mainly because technology has become much cheaper to produce.

Final Prediction

Microsoft will launch the new Xbox at $200!

What do you think? Did I forget an important variable? Let me know in the comments below.